Robert Nesta Marley was born on the
farm of his maternal grandfather in Nine Mile, Saint Ann, Jamaica. He was born
to Norval Sinclair Marley and Cedella Booker. His father, Norval, was a white
man in the Royal Marines who met Bob’s mother, a Jamaican teenager, only a few
times.
Bob was raised solely by his mother
but later in life he would seek out his father’s relatives only to be rejected.
Bob began playing music after he
moved to Trenchtown, in Kingston Jamaica and it was here that Bob began to see
music as not only a way out of poverty but also a tool to create change. Bob
matured in the shadow of Jamaica gaining independence and subsequently being thrown
into Civil War. It was this atmosphere that helped to create arguably the most
inspiring musician this world has ever seen.
Jamaica's popular music which always served
to spread stories had developed from calypso to mento and to ska when Marley
first started his music career. He soon developed reggae from ska and reggae gave
him new vision and ambition. He wanted to make music that would satisfy and
represent his homeland Jamaica, but that which would also reach a larger world
outside.
After a series of breakthroughs, that
is the recording of some of the band's best music with the innovative producer
Lee Perry in the early 1970s and a setback or two which included the making of
a misbegotten album for Jamaican release and a floundering artist deal at CBS, Bob
Marley and the Wailers approached Jamaican-raised Chris Blackwell, the head of
Island Records, in England who had helped distribute reggae, including the
Wailers' music, in the U.K. for years through the Trojan label.
The rest as they say is history
suffice it to say that Bob Marley became a widely recognized force, and
numerous other artists during the 1970s including Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder,
Elvis Costello and the Police would reflect his influence by following through
on some of the possibilities that his music was creating.
Bob Marley popularized reggae, a
music that had once sounded strange and foreign to many ears in the world. His music
gave hope to millions, not only in his home country, but all over the world.
His growing fame not only among music
fans the world over but also among human-rights campaigners, political
activists and even freedom fighters in Africa in 1970s had established Marley
as the most admired Jamaican the world over, and in his homeland, he was one of
the island's true moral leaders, much to the disgust of those who reviled his
radical ghetto and Rasta identity.
Marley's later albums form a related
body of work, though of a different sort. His earlier groundbreaking records
featured lovely music bearing tales of unbearable realities. By contrast his
later studiorecords: Exodus (1977), Kaya (1978), Survival (1979), Uprising (1980) and the
posthumous Confrontation (1983)
wore much of their resistance in the albums' titles, whereas their contents
were only occasionally about conflict and upheaval. Rather, these were albums
about sustaining hopes, small pleasures and the solace of love. These
recordings were more commercially successful but struck many critics as too
full of popwise moves, and there were some devastating reviews, especially in Rolling Stone Magazine.
One of the last songs Marley wrote
was "Redemption Song." It was the very last song he performed in
public, as he perched on a stool onstage that night in Pittsburgh, September
22nd, 1981, accompanied by only his acoustic guitar. Weary, knowing his death
was inside him, having been diagnosed of cancer, the house lights bearing down
on him, sweat pouring from his face, Marley sang a personal prayer that invited
us all in:
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill the book
Won't you help to sing,
These songs of freedom
'Cause all I ever had, redemption songs
All I ever had, redemption songs
These songs of freedom
Bob Marley died on 11th
May 1981 and received a state funeral in Jamaica. Rest on Great Man that influenced
the peoples of the world with reggae music. Rest on King of Reggae!
Emeka Okeke
